Thanks to Ortega, it isn't just a boys' world

Elleni Ortega remembers being incredibly nervous before competing in high school for the first time.

"I remember my hands were in front of me, and they were shaking so much," recalled Ortega, now a senior at Magnolia High. "At the same time I was thinking, 'I've been practicing. He's at the same level I am, so I just can't let him win.'

"I'm very competitive. I don't like losing."

It was the first round of Magnolia High's now-defunct Anaheim Union High School Wrestling Tournament. Ortega, still a novice at her newfound craft, was pitted against a 113-pound male competitor from Cypress High.

What ensued paved the way for a prep career like very few before it.

"I couldn't believe that I was going against a guy," said Ortega. "Then I pinned him! I was shocked. He was shocked. After that first match, I knew that wrestling was what I wanted to do."

Ortega – one of the first female wrestlers in school history – went on to place second in her weight class.

"She wants to be the champion," Sentinels coach Ed Nelson said. "She wants to be No. 1. She wants to be the best.

"It's a challenge to her. ... We're up to nine girls on the team right now, and it's a direct result of Elleni. She's just phenomenal."

Two months prior to her first triumph, Ortega watched from the perimeter of Magnolia's wrestling room as her older brother, Luis, plodded through daily practices.

"I would come (to practices), and he wouldn't even be there sometimes," said Ortega, 17. "Coach Ed (Nelson) finally told me one day, 'You're here more often than your brother. Why don't you try it out?'"

Within days, Nelson bought Ortega – a 5-foot, 105-pound ninth-grader with pink bangs at the time – her first pair of wrestling shoes, a kids size 4.

"He told me that I was going to be on the team until my shoes wore out," she recalled.

A multisport athlete – soccer, basketball, flag football and swimming – Ortega's introduction to wrestling and the sport's four-hour practices challenged her resolve.

"I would come out dying," said Ortega. "I would throw up during practice, because my body wasn't used to it. ... Then I got used to it, and I thought maybe practice was getting easier, but it wasn't.

"Football players would come in, and they'd be throwing up, too."

Ortega regularly traded sweat with lettermen.

"At first they were shy about it, but Coach told them that they had to wrestle me like any other wrestler,"she said.

By finishing eighth in the CIF-Southern Section 108-weight class her sophomore year, mostly against boys, Ortega was one of 12 qualifiers from the Southern Section to reach the inaugural Girls Wrestling State Invitational – a tournament implemented in 2011 by the CIF State Office.

As a junior she qualified for the state tournament once again, but a broken bone in her hand kept her sidelined.

"I was clueless," Ortega said of that first season at the state invitational. "I just showed up and didn't know what to do, where to go, but I got through it."

With less than half of the season remaining before a likely third consecutive trip to the postseason, Ortega's impact on the sport will resonate more than any match result.

"I'll remember my achievements, and what I'vedone – who I've beaten, and how far I got in each tournament," said Ortega, who might wrestle at the college level. "I really like wrestling. I guess you could say it's my whole life."